Killers: Behind the Myth

When a body is found trussed up in the River Odra in western Poland, the police are baffled: the man has been starved and tortured before being thrown alive into the river. The body has all the hallmarks of a punishment beating. The murder investigation stalls until police discover an online murder story written by a Krystian Bala that bears similarities to the death of the man in the river.

For two years, the baby-faced killer Karol Kot terrorized Krakow. Unlike many serial killers, he appeared to have no fixed motive when targeting his victims, which made tracking him down difficult. He began his attacks on elderly women, but after a two-year break, he moved on to attacking children.

For over 20 years, Joachim Kroll had been strangling women across northern Germany. As his killing spree grew, he started to target younger and younger victims. He then killed and cooked a cat, which only increased his desire to taste human flesh.

Fritz Honka lived a quiet life in Hamburg's red light district of St. Pauli, picking up elderly prostitutes for the price of a glass of schnapps and a bed for the night. When the women began to decline his sexual perversions, he retaliated by strangling his victims. To dispose of their bodies, he dismembered them and stored their parts in a space on the roof next to his flat.

For eight years, Paweł Tuchlin terrorized the region around Gdańsk, Poland. Known as "The Scorpion" for the swiftness of his attacks, he targeted women walking alone. Tuchlin would strike his victims with a hammer to the head before molesting them. Also a thief, Tuchlin snatched four piglets and police finally found his farm and sent him to the gallows.

Anatoly Onoprienko, "The Terminator," went on a mass killing spree in Ukraine. In just four months, he slaughtered 43 people, entering households and murdering whole families at a time. Onoprienko claimed that he heard voices in his head telling him to kill. Once apprehended, Onoprienko was sentenced for 52 murders, making him one of the most prolific serial killers of the century.